Cave monitoring
Guest Editors
Nenad Buzjak, University of Zagreb, Croatia Aurel Persoiu, Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Christos Pennos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GreeceCave Monitoring: Special Issue
The integrated monitoring of karst systems (MIKS) model, applied in karst studies in Bulgaria
Petar Stefanov, Dilyana Stefanova, and Peter Nojarov
- Theoretical-methodological platform ProKARSTerra for karst studies
- Integrated Monitoring of Karst Systems (MIKS) model
- MIKS comprises 6 types of monitoring
- Speleo-MIKS model is used for monitoring in cave systems
- Many problems in organizing and maintaining MIKS are described in this study
Designing a Cave Air Monitoring System: Guide and feedback from 15 years of monitoring the Cussac Cave (France)
Nicolas Peyraube, Jessica D. Villanueva, Fabien Naessens, Roland Lastennet, Sylvain Mateo, and Alain Denis
- Providing a flow chart of question to be answered when creating a monitoring system
- Providing feedback from 15 years of monitoring in a cave
- Examples of long time series of CO2 monitoring
- Example of sort time event influence on cave air
Microclimatic conditions in Shulgan-Tash Cave (Southern Ural, Russia): Implications for the preservation of Eastern Europe’s largest Paleolithic art collection
Olga Chervyatsova, Rayan Akhmedyanovb, Nailya Saifullina, Ludmila Kuzmina, Mihael Kotov, and Yuri Dublyansky
- Shulgan-Tash Cave exhibits distinct winter and summer ventilation regimes
- CO₂ concentrations: atmospheric in Lower Level, elevated in summer in Upper Level
- Elevated CO₂ levels in the Upper Level result from forest cover and phreatic degassing
- Key threats to cave art include condensation and fluctuating CO₂ levels in cave air
- Rapid degassing of infiltrating water leads to calcite deposition over cave paintings
Pre-calibration of δ18O for paleoclimatic interpretations using stalagmites in Cueva Ensueño, Puerto Rico
Gabriel Enrique López Borobia, Ny Riavo G. Voarintsoa, Ricardo Sánchez-Murillo, and Pablo Antonio Llerandi Román
- Isotopic fractionation is studied in Cueva Ensueño to pre-calibrate stalagmite δ18O
- Seasonal isotopic fractionation is found between wet and dry months
- Hendy test on farmed carbonates suggest kinetic fractionation
- Drip water isotopes are affected by epikarst storage
- Prior calcite precipitation increases in the dry season
Protocol for assessing and managing radon gas exposure risks in caves: A case study of Altamira and Paleolithic cave art of Northern Spain World Heritage Site
Sergio Sanchez-Moral, Javier Lario, Soledad Cuezva, Juan Carlos Cañaveras, Tamara Martín-Pozas, and Angel Fernández-Cortés
- Year-long monitoring of radon, temperature, and airflow in nine UNESCO caves, N. Spain
- Radon poses a major health hazard requiring strict management in tourist caves
- A protocol to assess radon exposure provides management tools for cave administrators
Measurements of water-film thickness on cave walls and speleothems
Alexandre Honiat, Salaheddine Skali-Lami, François Bourges, and Bruno Lartiges
- Cave wall water-films typically measure between 25 and 70 µm
- On active speleothems, films reach 200–300 µm in thickness
- A confocal optical sensor enabled precise in-situ measurements
- High-frequency monitoring captured rapid film thickness variations
- The method was successfully applied in multiple prehistoric caves
Monitoring strategies in cave microclimate studies
Nenad Buzjak, Dalibor Paar, Aurel Persoiu, Christos Pennos, Franci Gabrovšek, and Valerija Rossi
- Cave microclimates are spatially and temporally heterogeneous, not thermally uniform
- Cave climate, microclimate, and meteorology are formally defined and linked
- Monitoring strategies must distinguish temporal resolution from spatial design
- Vertical microclimate structure requires three-dimensional monitoring designs
- Hybrid monitoring integrates spot surveys with long-term continuous records
Ice temperature and heat transfer processes in cave glaciers
Aurel Persoiu
- Cave ice temperature measurements
- Rapid response of cave ice temperature to negative air temperature excursions
- Muted heat transfer inside ice with increasing depth
Response of Botovskaya Cave to local and regional environmental dynamics
Jade Margerum, Oksana Gutareva, Franziska Lechleitner, Maria Box, Stuart Umbo, Anton Vaks, Hanno Meyer, Aleksandr Kononov, Aleksander Osintsev, Dimitri Sokol'nikov, Norbert Marwan, Ola Kwiecien, and Sebastian Breitenbach
- Fifteen year surface and cave temperature and 6-month pCO2 monitoring
- Botovskaya Cave shows ventilation in spring and autumn and stagnation in winter and summer
- Dripwater isotopes reflect precipitation and are not affected by secondary evaporation
- Dripwater δ18O declines with distance from the entrances
- Stalagmite δ18O from different parts of the cave might reflect different degrees of seasonal bias
Technical Note
SpeleoCO: an open, low-cost Arduino CO₂ datalogger for cave microclimate monitoring
Christos Pennos and Dimitrios Christaras
- Development of an open-source, low-cost datalogger
- Rugged design for extreme environments
- Successful long-term field validation
- Support for multi-parameter research
